The man argues with a robot trying to monitor him on his evening walk. He responds to the above line with: "Everyone has something to hide and usually nobody cares. By surveilling everyone, you catch the benign breaches of law and taboo. If the public are all guilty, the executive branch of the government can selectively enforce laws, essentially giving them both judicial and legislative power, which defeats the whole point of separation of powers."

Is this a strong argument against the proliferation of surveillance equipment by the government? What other arguments can be brought to bear against the "if you've done nothing wrong" argument for such intrusion into people's lives?

"But the problem with the nothing tohide argument is the underlying assumption that privacy is about hidingbad things. Agreeing with this assumption concedes far too much groundand leads to an unproductive discussion of information people wouldlikely want or not want to hide. As Bruce Schneier aptly notes, the nothingto hide argument stems from a faulty "premise that privacy is abouthiding a wrong."75The deeper problem with the nothing to hide argument is that itmyopically views privacy as a form of concealment or secrecy."

I like taking the logic to the extreme, and suggesting that if every corner of every room in every house, business, hallway, and street were monitored, there would be no unsolved crimes. Is that worth the loss of privacy in your bedroom, bathroom, and backyard? After all, you have nothing to hide...

At 1/8/2013 1:57:14 PM, Khaos_Mage wrote:I like taking the logic to the extreme, and suggesting that if every corner of every room in every house, business, hallway, and street were monitored, there would be no unsolved crimes. Is that worth the loss of privacy in your bedroom, bathroom, and backyard? After all, you have nothing to hide...

This presumes that we have the capacity to investigate, arrest, charge, prosecute, convict, and incarcerate all of those crimes. Given that we can't do that now, I question the utility of that.

Plus, there will be an insane amount of false positives. The sheer number of people run through the above processes falsely far outweighs any perceived benefit.

The thing is, what if the government decides it's wrong to do stuff with certain drugs, wrong to say certain criticisms about the government/touchy stuff related to terrorism and national security, etc... I simply don't have that much trust in the federal government's definition of "wrong". What if the government's definition of wrong is often centered around whether or not it expands the growth of state-corporate power, NOT if the action in question is actually morally wrong? Do you really trust the state as a moral authority? One should apply far more skepticism and judiciousness toward state power.

The man arguing with the robot doesn't make a good point; the government's ability to selectively enforce laws isn't dependent on everyone being guilty. Nor are arguments from the illegitimacy of the laws themselves convincing; if the laws themselves are the problem, oppose the laws themselves, not their enforcement in the specific case of covertness. Finally, if government's surveillance of the people is one-sided, I'd say the more important problem is just that: that government lacks transparency. The argument that privacy has inherent utility, on the other hand, that may have legs; it shouldn't be taken to extremes, however.

At 1/8/2013 12:24:10 PM, royalpaladin wrote:It's really ironic that the police officers resist being recorded and even confiscates cell phones to prevent people from recording them while simultaneously infringing on everybody's privacy.

It is also equally ironic that people hate being recorded by the government while trying to record the government. Two-way street.

The man argues with a robot trying to monitor him on his evening walk. He responds to the above line with: "Everyone has something to hide and usually nobody cares. By surveilling everyone, you catch the benign breaches of law and taboo. If the public are all guilty, the executive branch of the government can selectively enforce laws, essentially giving them both judicial and legislative power, which defeats the whole point of separation of powers."

Is this a strong argument against the proliferation of surveillance equipment by the government? What other arguments can be brought to bear against the "if you've done nothing wrong" argument for such intrusion into people's lives?

This is falsely assuming that it would be the legislative branch that would be in control of the surveillance videos, which is highly unlikely.

At 1/8/2013 12:24:10 PM, royalpaladin wrote:It's really ironic that the police officers resist being recorded and even confiscates cell phones to prevent people from recording them while simultaneously infringing on everybody's privacy.

It is also equally ironic that people hate being recorded by the government while trying to record the government. Two-way street.

One volunteers to be in the public light and the other doesn't. Not that ironic.

"If you are a racist I will attack you with the north"- Abraham Lincoln

At 1/8/2013 1:57:14 PM, Khaos_Mage wrote:I like taking the logic to the extreme, and suggesting that if every corner of every room in every house, business, hallway, and street were monitored, there would be no unsolved crimes. Is that worth the loss of privacy in your bedroom, bathroom, and backyard? After all, you have nothing to hide...

This presumes that we have the capacity to investigate, arrest, charge, prosecute, convict, and incarcerate all of those crimes. Given that we can't do that now, I question the utility of that.

However, it allows us to be more efficient with the limited jail space and legal courts that we have.

Plus, there will be an insane amount of false positives. The sheer number of people run through the above processes falsely far outweighs any perceived benefit.

There would be no "false positives" because with every "potential" criminal event, you could follow the scene further forward and backwards to see what occured afterwards and what lead up to it.

At 1/8/2013 12:24:10 PM, royalpaladin wrote:It's really ironic that the police officers resist being recorded and even confiscates cell phones to prevent people from recording them while simultaneously infringing on everybody's privacy.

It is also equally ironic that people hate being recorded by the government while trying to record the government. Two-way street.

One volunteers to be in the public light and the other doesn't. Not that ironic.

At 1/8/2013 12:24:10 PM, royalpaladin wrote:It's really ironic that the police officers resist being recorded and even confiscates cell phones to prevent people from recording them while simultaneously infringing on everybody's privacy.

It is also equally ironic that people hate being recorded by the government while trying to record the government. Two-way street.

One volunteers to be in the public light and the other doesn't. Not that ironic.

Police often don't volunteer it, so.....

Police don't volunteer to be public servants?

"If you are a racist I will attack you with the north"- Abraham Lincoln

At 1/8/2013 12:24:10 PM, royalpaladin wrote:It's really ironic that the police officers resist being recorded and even confiscates cell phones to prevent people from recording them while simultaneously infringing on everybody's privacy.

It is also equally ironic that people hate being recorded by the government while trying to record the government. Two-way street.

One volunteers to be in the public light and the other doesn't. Not that ironic.

At 1/8/2013 12:24:10 PM, royalpaladin wrote:It's really ironic that the police officers resist being recorded and even confiscates cell phones to prevent people from recording them while simultaneously infringing on everybody's privacy.

It is also equally ironic that people hate being recorded by the government while trying to record the government. Two-way street.

Not really. The government is supposed to be accountable to the people so that it doesn't abuse us. The people aren't supposed to be accountable to the government. It is supposed to exist for us, and not the other way around.

At 1/8/2013 12:24:10 PM, royalpaladin wrote:It's really ironic that the police officers resist being recorded and even confiscates cell phones to prevent people from recording them while simultaneously infringing on everybody's privacy.

It is also equally ironic that people hate being recorded by the government while trying to record the government. Two-way street.

Not really. The government is supposed to be accountable to the people so that it doesn't abuse us. The people aren't supposed to be accountable to the government. It is supposed to exist for us, and not the other way around.

And any judicial system is entirely dependent upon how accurate it is, of which surveillance helps with immensely (probably one major reason that nearly every private company has surveillance cameras, for both their customer's and their own employees).

At 1/8/2013 12:24:10 PM, royalpaladin wrote:It's really ironic that the police officers resist being recorded and even confiscates cell phones to prevent people from recording them while simultaneously infringing on everybody's privacy.

It is also equally ironic that people hate being recorded by the government while trying to record the government. Two-way street.

One volunteers to be in the public light and the other doesn't. Not that ironic.

Police often don't volunteer it, so.....

Police don't volunteer to be public servants?

"Public servant" =/= "be in the public light"

It absolutely is. Police are entirely accountable and transparent to the public they serve.

"If you are a racist I will attack you with the north"- Abraham Lincoln

At 1/8/2013 12:24:10 PM, royalpaladin wrote:It's really ironic that the police officers resist being recorded and even confiscates cell phones to prevent people from recording them while simultaneously infringing on everybody's privacy.

It is also equally ironic that people hate being recorded by the government while trying to record the government. Two-way street.

Not really. The government is supposed to be accountable to the people so that it doesn't abuse us. The people aren't supposed to be accountable to the government. It is supposed to exist for us, and not the other way around.

And any judicial system is entirely dependent upon how accurate it is, of which surveillance helps with immensely (probably one major reason that nearly every private company has surveillance cameras, for both their customer's and their own employees).

Private companies can have surveillance on their property because it belongs to them. The government does not own my house or my computer, however. In addition, we are supposedly contracting the judicial system to help us, so we can set limits as we please, and we want to set the limits to include our right to privacy.

At 1/8/2013 12:24:10 PM, royalpaladin wrote:It's really ironic that the police officers resist being recorded and even confiscates cell phones to prevent people from recording them while simultaneously infringing on everybody's privacy.

It is also equally ironic that people hate being recorded by the government while trying to record the government. Two-way street.

Not really. The government is supposed to be accountable to the people so that it doesn't abuse us. The people aren't supposed to be accountable to the government. It is supposed to exist for us, and not the other way around.

And any judicial system is entirely dependent upon how accurate it is, of which surveillance helps with immensely (probably one major reason that nearly every private company has surveillance cameras, for both their customer's and their own employees).

Private companies can have surveillance on their property because it belongs to them. The government does not own my house or my computer, however. In addition, we are supposedly contracting the judicial system to help us, so we can set limits as we please, and we want to set the limits to include our right to privacy.

Actually the "we" tends to be moving towards public surveillance. It is, of course, not at the absolute extreme, but it is moving further and further.

"Americans, by nearly a 3-to-1 margin, support the increased use of surveillance cameras " a measure decried by some civil libertarians, but credited in London with helping to catch a variety of perpetrators since the early 1990s."

At 1/8/2013 12:24:10 PM, royalpaladin wrote:It's really ironic that the police officers resist being recorded and even confiscates cell phones to prevent people from recording them while simultaneously infringing on everybody's privacy.

It is also equally ironic that people hate being recorded by the government while trying to record the government. Two-way street.

Not really. The government is supposed to be accountable to the people so that it doesn't abuse us. The people aren't supposed to be accountable to the government. It is supposed to exist for us, and not the other way around.

And any judicial system is entirely dependent upon how accurate it is, of which surveillance helps with immensely (probably one major reason that nearly every private company has surveillance cameras, for both their customer's and their own employees).

Private companies can have surveillance on their property because it belongs to them. The government does not own my house or my computer, however. In addition, we are supposedly contracting the judicial system to help us, so we can set limits as we please, and we want to set the limits to include our right to privacy.

Actually the "we" tends to be moving towards public surveillance. It is, of course, not at the absolute extreme, but it is moving further and further.

"Americans, by nearly a 3-to-1 margin, support the increased use of surveillance cameras " a measure decried by some civil libertarians, but credited in London with helping to catch a variety of perpetrators since the early 1990s."

It doesn't matter what biased polls says considering that a sizable portion of people have landlines. If people want it, they can elect people who support it into office

At 1/8/2013 12:24:10 PM, royalpaladin wrote:It's really ironic that the police officers resist being recorded and even confiscates cell phones to prevent people from recording them while simultaneously infringing on everybody's privacy.

It is also equally ironic that people hate being recorded by the government while trying to record the government. Two-way street.

Not really. The government is supposed to be accountable to the people so that it doesn't abuse us. The people aren't supposed to be accountable to the government. It is supposed to exist for us, and not the other way around.

And any judicial system is entirely dependent upon how accurate it is, of which surveillance helps with immensely (probably one major reason that nearly every private company has surveillance cameras, for both their customer's and their own employees).

Private companies can have surveillance on their property because it belongs to them. The government does not own my house or my computer, however. In addition, we are supposedly contracting the judicial system to help us, so we can set limits as we please, and we want to set the limits to include our right to privacy.

Actually the "we" tends to be moving towards public surveillance. It is, of course, not at the absolute extreme, but it is moving further and further.

"Americans, by nearly a 3-to-1 margin, support the increased use of surveillance cameras " a measure decried by some civil libertarians, but credited in London with helping to catch a variety of perpetrators since the early 1990s."

It doesn't matter what biased polls says considering that a sizable portion of people have landlines. If people want it, they can elect people who support it into office

Whatever dance you need to do to make you feel like your side is better accepted.

At 1/8/2013 1:57:14 PM, Khaos_Mage wrote:I like taking the logic to the extreme, and suggesting that if every corner of every room in every house, business, hallway, and street were monitored, there would be no unsolved crimes. Is that worth the loss of privacy in your bedroom, bathroom, and backyard? After all, you have nothing to hide...

This presumes that we have the capacity to investigate, arrest, charge, prosecute, convict, and incarcerate all of those crimes. Given that we can't do that now, I question the utility of that.

However, it allows us to be more efficient with the limited jail space and legal courts that we have.

It also might get legislators to consider what is/should be a crime, and clean out the books.

Plus, there will be an insane amount of false positives. The sheer number of people run through the above processes falsely far outweighs any perceived benefit.

There would be no "false positives" because with every "potential" criminal event, you could follow the scene further forward and backwards to see what occured afterwards and what lead up to it.

Thank you Ore_Ele for answering for me; you can follow the perp from the crime scene back to their house and, better yet, forward to their current hideout.

At 1/8/2013 1:57:14 PM, Khaos_Mage wrote:I like taking the logic to the extreme, and suggesting that if every corner of every room in every house, business, hallway, and street were monitored, there would be no unsolved crimes. Is that worth the loss of privacy in your bedroom, bathroom, and backyard? After all, you have nothing to hide...

This presumes that we have the capacity to investigate, arrest, charge, prosecute, convict, and incarcerate all of those crimes. Given that we can't do that now, I question the utility of that.

However, it allows us to be more efficient with the limited jail space and legal courts that we have.

Potentially, actuality? I doubt it.

Plus, there will be an insane amount of false positives. The sheer number of people run through the above processes falsely far outweighs any perceived benefit.

There would be no "false positives" because with every "potential" criminal event, you could follow the scene further forward and backwards to see what occured afterwards and what lead up to it.

There would be plenty of false positives because it will still depend on human discretion.

I find myself intrigued by your subvocal oscillations.
A singular development of cat communications
That obviates your basic hedonistic predilection,
For a rhythmic stroking of your fur to demonstrate affection.

At 1/8/2013 1:57:14 PM, Khaos_Mage wrote:I like taking the logic to the extreme, and suggesting that if every corner of every room in every house, business, hallway, and street were monitored, there would be no unsolved crimes. Is that worth the loss of privacy in your bedroom, bathroom, and backyard? After all, you have nothing to hide...

This presumes that we have the capacity to investigate, arrest, charge, prosecute, convict, and incarcerate all of those crimes. Given that we can't do that now, I question the utility of that.

However, it allows us to be more efficient with the limited jail space and legal courts that we have.

Potentially, actuality? I doubt it.

Plus, there will be an insane amount of false positives. The sheer number of people run through the above processes falsely far outweighs any perceived benefit.

There would be no "false positives" because with every "potential" criminal event, you could follow the scene further forward and backwards to see what occured afterwards and what lead up to it.

There would be plenty of false positives because it will still depend on human discretion.

How? You see a crime committed at 9:07 and the culprit goes off screen at 9:12, you then go to camera that would have that view and look at 9:12, and repeat. The only false positive would be if someone could do a "three card monty", but to do this, they would have to blend in a crowd very well.

Unless, by discretion, you mean there would be uncharged crimes due to judicial economics, where the discretion is on which crimes will be charged, not the accussed. That may be, but that is not a false positive. Plus, the sentence could be more monetary fines and less jail time for smaller offenses, like burglary and larceny, which are usually never caught anyway.

At 1/8/2013 1:57:14 PM, Khaos_Mage wrote:I like taking the logic to the extreme, and suggesting that if every corner of every room in every house, business, hallway, and street were monitored, there would be no unsolved crimes. Is that worth the loss of privacy in your bedroom, bathroom, and backyard? After all, you have nothing to hide...

This presumes that we have the capacity to investigate, arrest, charge, prosecute, convict, and incarcerate all of those crimes. Given that we can't do that now, I question the utility of that.

However, it allows us to be more efficient with the limited jail space and legal courts that we have.

Potentially, actuality? I doubt it.

Plus, there will be an insane amount of false positives. The sheer number of people run through the above processes falsely far outweighs any perceived benefit.

There would be no "false positives" because with every "potential" criminal event, you could follow the scene further forward and backwards to see what occured afterwards and what lead up to it.

There would be plenty of false positives because it will still depend on human discretion.

How? You see a crime committed at 9:07 and the culprit goes off screen at 9:12, you then go to camera that would have that view and look at 9:12, and repeat. The only false positive would be if someone could do a "three card monty", but to do this, they would have to blend in a crowd very well.

Unless, by discretion, you mean there would be uncharged crimes due to judicial economics, where the discretion is on which crimes will be charged, not the accussed. That may be, but that is not a false positive. Plus, the sentence could be more monetary fines and less jail time for smaller offenses, like burglary and larceny, which are usually never caught anyway.

At 1/8/2013 1:57:14 PM, Khaos_Mage wrote:I like taking the logic to the extreme, and suggesting that if every corner of every room in every house, business, hallway, and street were monitored, there would be no unsolved crimes. Is that worth the loss of privacy in your bedroom, bathroom, and backyard? After all, you have nothing to hide...

This presumes that we have the capacity to investigate, arrest, charge, prosecute, convict, and incarcerate all of those crimes. Given that we can't do that now, I question the utility of that.

However, it allows us to be more efficient with the limited jail space and legal courts that we have.

Potentially, actuality? I doubt it.

Plus, there will be an insane amount of false positives. The sheer number of people run through the above processes falsely far outweighs any perceived benefit.

There would be no "false positives" because with every "potential" criminal event, you could follow the scene further forward and backwards to see what occured afterwards and what lead up to it.

There would be plenty of false positives because it will still depend on human discretion.

How? You see a crime committed at 9:07 and the culprit goes off screen at 9:12, you then go to camera that would have that view and look at 9:12, and repeat. The only false positive would be if someone could do a "three card monty", but to do this, they would have to blend in a crowd very well.

I see. I thought you meant a false positive in identity, not in the act itself.Your discretion aspect is of concern. Is spanking your child abuse? Is pushing my wife off the couch assualt? Is a 15-year-old having a glass of wine with dinner a criminal act?But, an arrest warrant would still need to be issued, and the DA would have to agree with the police that a crime occured, so it isn't just the whims of one person, it would be the whims of, at least, 14.

So, false postives may occur, but in very low levels, as the surveilence would have context (you can see what happens 20 minutes before and after to see if it was an assualt or roughhousing), and preferably sound. This is a point that could be argued in court.

At 1/8/2013 1:57:14 PM, Khaos_Mage wrote:I like taking the logic to the extreme, and suggesting that if every corner of every room in every house, business, hallway, and street were monitored, there would be no unsolved crimes. Is that worth the loss of privacy in your bedroom, bathroom, and backyard? After all, you have nothing to hide...

This presumes that we have the capacity to investigate, arrest, charge, prosecute, convict, and incarcerate all of those crimes. Given that we can't do that now, I question the utility of that.

However, it allows us to be more efficient with the limited jail space and legal courts that we have.

Potentially, actuality? I doubt it.

Plus, there will be an insane amount of false positives. The sheer number of people run through the above processes falsely far outweighs any perceived benefit.

There would be no "false positives" because with every "potential" criminal event, you could follow the scene further forward and backwards to see what occured afterwards and what lead up to it.

There would be plenty of false positives because it will still depend on human discretion.

How? You see a crime committed at 9:07 and the culprit goes off screen at 9:12, you then go to camera that would have that view and look at 9:12, and repeat. The only false positive would be if someone could do a "three card monty", but to do this, they would have to blend in a crowd very well.

I see. I thought you meant a false positive in identity, not in the act itself.Your discretion aspect is of concern. Is spanking your child abuse? Is pushing my wife off the couch assualt? Is a 15-year-old having a glass of wine with dinner a criminal act?But, an arrest warrant would still need to be issued, and the DA would have to agree with the police that a crime occured, so it isn't just the whims of one person, it would be the whims of, at least, 14.

So, false postives may occur, but in very low levels, as the surveilence would have context (you can see what happens 20 minutes before and after to see if it was an assualt or roughhousing), and preferably sound. This is a point that could be argued in court.

False positives occur now, to levels which are low only arguably so. Adding full time complete surveillance would only kick that into hyperdrive. Also, there is the issue of crimes apparently about to occur, but don't.

At 1/9/2013 8:06:40 PM, drafterman wrote:False positives occur now, to levels which are low only arguably so. Adding full time complete surveillance would only kick that into hyperdrive. Also, there is the issue of crimes apparently about to occur, but don't.

There is already that issue. So, if I understand, currently we have false positives and true positives, and that's fine; add surveillance and we'll have more false positives and more true positives, and that's somehow not fine. I guess the question is, what is the magic number of false positives that makes the attendant true positives irrelevant?